


Of Softer Dragons

by Cân Cennau (cancennau)



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Body Positivity, Cantair Set, Drabble Collection, First Kiss, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues, fatphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 23:34:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7594699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cancennau/pseuds/C%C3%A2n%20Cennau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten drabbles following Elim Garak's relationship with body size.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Softer Dragons

Cardassians got bigger as they got older, but the picturesque triangular frame - broad shouldered, narrow hipped - is the ideal, plastered across all Cardassian advertisements.

Elim is bigger than most adults at thirteen, broad in shoulder as well as hip. His looks get attention - five-minute dates from those who think he’s older, whispers of “old before their years” with pitying _Un_ , and Elim hates it. He skips pudding, focusing on homework instead of the growling in his belly, pushes himself harder in exercise class until his muscles blaze, but still he towers, a mockery of what Cardassia tells him to be.

* * *

Uncle Tain had always taught him there is power in his size. He never believed it, not when he was younger. But then came _Bamarren_ , and the shame of being the first caught, and he learns. He learns how to move like a _regnar_ , how to manipulate people with his soft face, how to love and to be betrayed, how to crush those who claim he's too broad to make it, too big to win, with his multiple successes.

Tain exiles him when his confidence outgrows his body. Elim learns fat Cardassians should only be heard, not seen, not loved.

* * *

On his own amongst Bajorans and Humans, Elim feels somewhat at a loss. Yes, he’s hated and mistrusted, but the hate is not as bad as he believed it would be. The overweight tailor, with the calm smile and the voice with only a hint of suggestion, is ignored. Underestimated. It’s underwhelming, annoying and rather disappointing.

As an experiment, he flirts with a rather attractive Federation doctor, using all his old tricks and suggestive charm. Julian Bashir stutters and squirms, just as he planned. Elim sends a mental smug note to his former Obsidian Order comrades. He still has it.

* * *

The first time Elim reads of a body like his, it’s in some drivel of a Human novel, recommended by a persistent client. He gets through thirty pages of “mountainous curves” and “flexing ocean of skin” before he takes great pleasure in watching it disintegrate in the recycler.

He mentions it to Julian, once, but he gets the impression Julian is more annoyed that the book isn’t catered to him rather than the quality of descriptions. He supposes the doctor, with his trim physique, has probably never had the issue of being described as a landscape rather than a person.

* * *

It’s six years before Elim returns home. Cardassia is famined, and yet Elim stays bigger than other Cardassians. There are rumours Elim has a private food supply - he knows the distributors cut things out of his rations on purpose.

“You too?”

Elim remembers Kelas, soft and friendly and broken after his interrogation, and the first time Elim realised a fat Cardassian could be attractive. Kelas forgave him long ago, and they stick together, two fat Cardassians in a sea of the malnourished.

“It’s better. Only the _yamok_ this time.”

“They took my _povva_ bread - trade? You can have my _yamok…_ ”

* * *

If Julian knew Kelas, Elim is certain that he would describe Kelas Parmak as "an old hippie”. They have no inhibitions, happily wearing fitted outfits outside, and then padding about in barely a towel when they were home, even when Elim stays over. They were comfortable in their size, proud, and Elim is intrigued.

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t be.” Kelas tells him, when he asks. “We are mountains among men - big, powerful.”

“Don’t charm me with your pretty metaphors, Kelas.” Elim frowns. “I know what I am.”

“And why is that a bad thing?”

He has no answer.

* * *

Elim is smitten and terrified.

He feels the butterflies, thinks of his unfinished, unforgiving body, thinks of Barkan and Palandine, remembers the pain. Two of his best friends, only his friends because he, the fat Cardassian, looked like the easier target. But Kelas is not them - Kelas could hurt him, but they wouldn’t. They are soft and beautiful and brilliant - they are his confidante, who stays during his bad moments and lifts him in his good, and taught him to be proud of the body he inhabits.

Loving Kelas Parmak comes so easily, and that’s what scares Elim the most.

* * *

Kelas kisses him one night in the slow hours of dusk, lying shirtless and exhausted after hours of working in the humid _gorgors_ day. Elim watches the doctor covertly as they half lay on each other. Kelas hums as he reverently runs a hand over the swell of their abdomen, over the underbelly scales, soft and dry and a little loose - Kelas’ shed is due, and the old scales glitter like diamond dust under the evening sky.

“You’re incredibly attractive, did you know that?” Elim murmurs. Kelas catches his lips in a soft kiss, and Elim knows the feeling’s mutual.

* * *

Elim used to hate his shed - now, it's far more pleasurable. His extra padding meaning getting glorious deep pressure on soft, fresh scale is exraordinarily simple. And Kelas knows exactly which scales to push, to suck, until Elim is coming messily between them without Kelas even touching his _prUt_.

“I never get enough of this.” Kelas remarks, stroking Elim's middle age spread. “You, like this, not making your blooming into a fight. So responsive”

“You’d get horribly bored if it was like this all the time.” Elim tells him with a satisfied grin, before rolling over and kissing him silent.

* * *

_pemitka_ was always Garak’s favourite season - the air, warm and comfortable, filled with floating, delicate _mitnet_ seeds. They lay together, him and Kelas, in a hammock outside their home, shirtless and sleepy, their combined weight creating a deeply fulfilling deep pressure between them. Elim’s delicate underbelly scales pressed against Kelas’, both dry and ready to shed - shedding synchronicity was a funny side-effect of living together.

Had someone told Elim that a fat Cardassian could be content back on Terok Nor, he would’ve laughed. But here they were, content, calm and complete. Two old, fat dragons, basking under the indigo sky.


End file.
